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McCaw: England will push All Blacks in 2019

Cape Town - All Black legend Richie McCaw believes that England under Eddie Jones will be a major threat at the 2019 World Cup.

The All Blacks remain the No 1 side in the world and are overwhelming favourites to win the global showpiece in Japan, but England are a side that has improved drastically since their 2015 World Cup failure and they stand alone as the side most likely to challenge the All Blacks. 

McCaw, who played a staggering 148 Tests for New Zealand, believes that the All Blacks will not have it all their own way in Japan. 

"There is no doubt ­Eddie (Jones) has instilled some confidence in what they are doing and they are playing rugby that is pretty smart," McCaw told the Daily Telegraph.

"I suspect that the English are probably at that point where they do actually think they are on the right track.

"Teams compete with [England] for a while – if you look at the Aussies – and then when the opportunity came to bang the nail, it was 30 points to six and you wonder, 'How did that happen?'"

England will play South Africa in three Test matches in June next year.

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